The Chicago White Sox, Chicago Bulls, and Chicago Blackhawks are in the final stages of negotiations to establish Stadium as their new television home. Their current contract with rights holder NBC Sports Chicago is set to expire in October, but there’s a possibility of a six-month extension. If that occurs, Stadium would take over broadcasting when the White Sox begin play next year.
Stadium, whose offices and studio are located in the United Center, aims to transform into a regional sports network (RSN) and seek distribution through pay-TV providers. Additionally, it already has a streaming platform in place and could potentially offer a direct-to-consumer service via its app. The teams, led by Bulls and Sox chairman Jerry Reinsdorf, are also exploring over-the-air partners to carry their games.
However, starting an RSN in the current landscape presents challenges—cable viewership is declining, while streaming usage is on the rise. Transitioning to a new RSN won’t necessarily solve this issue and could even create complications when seeking carriage on cable and satellite providers like Comcast and DirecTV.
Diamond Sports Group, which operates 19 Bally Sports-branded networks, has been in bankruptcy court for over a year but is now emerging with a reorganization plan. Meanwhile, Major League Baseball is producing games for the Diamondbacks, Padres, and Rockies, who lost their RSNs. The Cubs’ Marquee Sports Network also made cost-cutting decisions during spring training by not sending broadcasters to most of their games.
It’s worth noting that Jerry Reinsdorf acquired majority control of Stadium last spring. Initially launched in 2017 with Sinclair Broadcast Group, Stadium later supplied nongame programming to the Bally networks under Sinclair’s purview. When Sinclair divested the RSNs to Diamond, Stadium became independent. The move may impact staff at NBC Sports Chicago, and the network would be the latest RSN to leave NBC’s stable of networks.
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